‘The Resurrection and Life’

‘The Resurrection and Life’ By: Lary R. Hale

Just a few notes today on how and why Jesus rose from the dead after dying for the sins of all men on the cross of Calvary. I’ll cut to the chase and just say that overall it’s about the fact that he was the only begotten Son of God who came from heaven. This is a very integral understanding, and it also debunks the ‘preexistence’ doctrine that some hold to. I’ll use the following scripture as our text: “And [Jesus was] declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:4). The scripture tells us plainly that we were all literally “in Adam,” and that “in Adam all die” (I Cor. 15:22). We all had the death sentence passed upon us because we were all counted as sinners when Adam sinned, seeing the substance of our being was in Adam, including our spirit. That is why we were all born into this world with sin already in us, because sin is found in the spirit of man, and our spirits were defiled when Adam sinned (Mk. 7:21-23). So as the apostle Paul said, “The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven” (I Cor. 15:47). We know that Adam was created from the dust of the earth, meaning his whole body, soul, and spirit was of the earth; which is to say the same for all of us, seeing we all come out of Adam. So we are 'earthy,’ meaning we are of the earth literally, but as the scripture says; Jesus was and is from heaven. Now we know that Jesus’ body was of Mary, conceived by the holy Ghost, so it is not his body that was from heaven (Lk. 1:35). Rather it was his spirit that came from heaven to be born along with that body, making him both the Son of God and the Son of man. Paul cited this in Hebrews: “Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me” (Heb. 10:5).

What we have seen from the scriptures is that Jesus was the only human being in the history of the world who 'preexisted’ with the Father in heaven. The reason for the virgin birth was so that the Son of God could come from heaven and become a man who had no sin, because his spirit did not come from Adam; so he did not die in Adam like the rest of us. Jesus was not born with sin like we were, and he was not born with a death sentence like the rest of us. He truly was perfect, and he was the “lamb of the first year without blemish” from the beginning (Lev. 14:10). He had to become a man in order to be the redeemer of men, because in the law it was only someone who was a brethren and near of kin to a servant that could buy them out of servitude (Lev. 25:48,49). Jesus was not born with sin, neither did he ever do sin, because his spirit was holy Spirit alone, and he literally could not sin. There was no one in heaven or in earth that could have come and paid the price that would be sufficient to redeem us from sin and death other than God’s begotten Son. When Jesus died he died as that lamb without blemish FOR our sins, but he himself died without any sin on his part. That very simply is the reason that he was able to raise from the dead, because “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). Sin and death are inseparable because as the verse says, death is the wages that is received for having sin. I believe that Peter said it best on the day of Pentecost: “Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it” (Acts 2:23,24). So he died to take the penalty for our sins, and his resurrection was the declaration of victory over sin and death so that he could literally take our sins away and give us eternal life instead of death.

The holy Ghost was the power that raised Jesus from the dead, and it is the holy Ghost and power that we receive when we repent and truly believe on him (I Pet. 3:18; Jn. 7:38,39; Acts 1:4,5,8). Paul explained this in Colossians: “And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power… Buried with him in baptism [of the Spirit], wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the [power] of God, who hath raised him from the dead” (Col. 2:10,12). In fact the holy Ghost is the substantial eternal life that dwells in Jesus and in the Father, which Jesus has given to dwell in them that believe on him (Jn. 5:26; Jn. 10:10; Rom. 8:2). So when we are baptized into Christ with the holy Ghost we become partakers of both his death and his resurrection, and that by the power of God as Paul stated in Colossians 2:12 (Rom. 6:3,4; I Cor. 12:13; Gal. 3:27). The whole point of our receiving the Spirit of God is to have sin literally washed out of our inner being by the eternal, divine life of God and his Son (I Cor. 6:11; Tit. 3:5). And the whole point of having sin washed away is obviously so that we, like Jesus, can die without sin in our lives to the intent that death will not be able to hold us either. So when he who is “the resurrection and the life” returns from heaven, those who have remained pure from sin will automatically rise to meet him, and be glorified bodily with him, thereby completing the promise of eternal life (Jn. 11:25; I Jn. 3:2,3; Col. 3:3,4; Philip. 2:20,21). So the only way we can truly celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead on this or any other day, is if we have been baptized with the holy Ghost and power, and are continuing to “purify [ourselves] even as he is pure” (I Jn. 3:3). That alone is our hope and assurance of being raised from the dead as he was. Amen.